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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
The constitutional reorganisation which accompanied the original Cistercian reform was revolutionary and influenced all forms of religious vocation within the Church. The individual monastery was reinstated as complete and independent in itself, in opposition to the ‘centralisation monarchique’ of Cluny, but each monastery was also part of an order and was under the discipline of the order. The first genuine concept of a religious order had been introduced and many of its details were followed or forced upon all forms of black-monk monasticism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, at the time when the concept itself was being utilised by the Franciscans and the Dominicans. The reform had four general characteristics: the mother house was given pre-eminence within the order; an annual general chapter of all the abbots was established as the supreme legislative body; regular visitations of daughter houses by the abbot of the founding house were a means of supervision; and all of this was combined to form an administrative and disciplinary system capable of securing the fourth characteristic, the unity of observance throughout the order. This was the observance initially followed at Citeaux itself and represented a closer and even literal following of the Rule of St. Benedict, but it was to be secured by a constitutional organisation that drew no inspiration from the Rule. This organisation depended upon a two-fold supervision: horizontally, through the annual general chapter of the abbots of the order, and vertically, through the regular visitations of daughter houses by the abbot of the founding house, or his representative.
page 186 note 1 This term has been used by Mahn, J. B., L'Ordre Cistercien et son Gouvernement, Paris 1951, 68Google Scholar, to describe the Cluniac order.
page 186 note 2 These four characteristics have been analysed by Duvernay, R., ‘Citeaux Vallombreuse et Etienne Harding’ in Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis, vii (Rome 1952), 379–495Google Scholar. His immediate purpose was to show the way in which these characteristics were established in the original and early documents of the order, and he adds as the fifth essential element ‘La Charite, en tant que base et force inspiratrice, force organisatrice de tout le systeme’ (425). Since my purpose is to establish the characteristics of the constitutional organisation, I have omitted this fifth element.
page 186 note 3 The monastic customs were being revised in the sense of a great fidelity to the letter of the Rule, but in practice this varied from literal and closer followings to complete innovations. Salmon, D. P.Melanges St. Bernard, Dijon 1953Google Scholar, has disputed whether a literal following was ever intended.
page 187 note 1 Dr. Janauscheck has written that leave was granted for all the abbots of Navarre, Catalonia, Aragon and Friesland to visit Citeaux once every second year. The abbots of Castille and Leon were to meet there every third year; those from Portugal, Galicia, Majorica, Greece and Ireland every fourth; those from Syria, Palestine, Livonia, Sweden and Norway every fifth; and those from the abbeys of Walkena (Livonia), Beaumont and St. Georgius de Jubino (Syria) every seventh year. Cistercian Order Historical Sketches, 1886, 9.
page 187 note 2 Even in 1233 the general chapter noted that the Irish abbots were absent, Canivez, J. M. (ed.), Statuta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Cisterciensis, Louvain 1933–41Google Scholar, (ii, 119), and on the next occasion when they were under obligation to attend, in 1237, four of the Irish abbots were again absent, Canivez, op. cit., ii. 177.
page 187 note 3 ‘… supplicamus, quatinus inquisitionem, quam archiepiscopo Armacano et Dromerensi et Cloenensi episcopis faciendam in nostro ordine commisistis in Hibernia … revocetis … Nos etiam pro reverentia vestra et statu ordinis … impetratis parati fuimus tempore capituli generalis moderari processum visitatorum in Hibernia, si in veritate fuisset in aliquo moderandum.’ ‘Registrum Epistolarum Stephani de Lexinton’, ed. Griesser, P. in Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis, ii (1946), 13Google Scholar.
page 187 note 4 At the general chapter of 1228, Stephen was affirmed in his position as visitor and his policy was approved. Canivez, op. cit., ii. 73.
page 188 note 1 ‘Super enormi facto Hyberniensium, de abbate ab eis interfecto et de alio exulato, mittatur ad dominum Papam ad eius consilium pariter et auxilum implorandum, ut et ipso scribat principi terrae et aliis quibus et qualiter viderit expedire.’ Canivez, op. cit., ii. 27.
page 188 note 2 Professor Gwynn has briefly discussed this opposition in ‘Edward I and the Proposed Purchase of English Law for the Irish c. 1276–80’, Royal Historical Society Transactions, x (1960), 111–29Google Scholar.
page 188 note 3 This suggestion has been made by Professor Gwynn, op. cit., 115.
page 189 note 1 Lawrence, C. H., ‘Stephen of Lexington and Cistercian University Studies in the Thirteenth Century’ in this Journal, xi (1960), 165Google Scholar.
page 189 note 2 C. H. Lawrence has described the details of Stephen's academic career in the above article and he has described his departure from Oxford both there and more fully in St. Edmund of Abingdon, a Study of Hagiography and History, 1960, 101, 118, 251.
page 189 note 3 ‘Quomodo namque ordinem diliget aut silencii servabit gravitatem vel claustri disciplinam qui omnino nullam in scriptura novit invenire solatium non in lege Dei meditari saltim modicum quiddam die aut nocte?’ Griesser, op. cit., 57. ‘Quomodo autem diliget claustrum, aut librum, qui nichil novit nisi Hibernicum?’: Griesser, op. cit., 47. The first Cistercians had stressed the necessity of a deliberate decision being made to embrace the monastic life and had rejected the reception of boys as one of the scandals of the black-monk monasteries. This was practical only where an education could be acquired outside the monastery for those wishing to become monks, but the order had never properly considered the alternatives where no such system of education existed. With the expansion of the order into the more primitive parts of Europe, ignorance had become a problem and was being suggested as a cause of violence and even of heresy: Griesser, op. cit., 117.
page 189 note 4 Griesser, op. cit., 102.
page 189 note 5 Ibid., 47.
page 190 note 1 Ibid., 47.
page 190 note 2 Quoted in Conway, C., The Story of Mellifont, Dublin 1958Google Scholar, Introd. 1.
page 190 note 3 Curtis, E., A History of Medieval Ireland, Dublin 1939, 98Google Scholar.
page 190 note 4 See C. H. Lawrence, op. cit., 116, and Griesser, op. cit., Introd. 4–5.
page 191 note 1 Griesser, op. cit., 30–1.
page 191 note 2 C. H. Lawrence, op. cit., 173.
page 191 note 3 Ibid., 177–8.